A Melbourne kitchen renovation typically costs between $23,000 and $49,000, and that range covers the great majority of owner-occupier projects in this city. Below it you are refacing rather than renovating. Above it you are into custom joinery, stone and appliance packages that push past what most households need.
What makes Melbourne kitchens distinctive is the housing stock they sit in. A large share of this city’s kitchens are in timber-framed homes with sloping floors, out-of-square walls, and a rear lean-to that was added in 1955 and never quite worked. Getting a good kitchen into that is a different exercise from installing one in a slab-on-ground home in Point Cook, and it costs differently too.
What You Pay at Each Level
- $16,000 to $24,000 — flat-pack or entry-level custom carcasses, laminate or compact laminate benchtops, mid-tier appliances, layout unchanged. Suitable for rentals and pre-sale refreshes.
- $24,000 to $40,000 — custom cabinetry built to your dimensions, low-silica composite or porcelain benchtops, an island, integrated dishwasher, quality induction cooktop, and a modest layout change.
- $40,000 to $70,000 — full custom joinery in two-pack or veneer, butler’s pantry, premium appliances, natural stone or large-format porcelain, and a genuine reconfiguration with relocated services.
- $70,000 to $160,000-plus — designer kitchens with book-matched stone, integrated refrigeration, specialty finishes and bespoke metalwork.
Most Melbourne family homes land between $30,000 and $48,000. That is the point at which the kitchen is genuinely custom, the finishes will last fifteen years, and nothing has been compromised for a photograph.
The Cost Breakdown
Cabinetry — 35 to 45 per cent
Melbourne cabinetmakers price by linear metre. Current 2026 rates:
- Flat-pack, self-assembled — $450 to $850 per linear metre supply only
- Flat-pack, professionally installed — $1,000 to $1,500 per linear metre
- Custom melamine or laminate finish — $1,500 to $2,200 per linear metre installed
- Custom two-pack polyurethane — $2,200 to $3,200 per linear metre installed
- Custom timber veneer or specialty finish — $3,000 to $4,800 per linear metre installed
A typical Melbourne kitchen contains six to nine linear metres including the island.
Worth paying for inside the cabinet: moisture-resistant board in the sink run, full-extension soft-close runners, 18mm carcasses, and a properly scribed toe-kick. In a Melbourne period home, that last point matters more than it sounds — floors here are rarely level, and a toe-kick packed rather than scribed produces a visible wedge of daylight along the whole run.
Benchtops — 10 to 20 per cent
Since the national ban on high-silica engineered stone, the market has moved to low-silica and silica-free composites, porcelain and natural stone. Melbourne rates, supplied and installed:
- Laminate — $280 to $550 per square metre
- Compact laminate — $650 to $1,000 per square metre
- Low-silica or silica-free composite — $750 to $1,300 per square metre
- Porcelain slab — $950 to $1,800 per square metre
- Natural granite — $850 to $1,500 per square metre
- Marble and specialty stone — $1,300 to $3,200 per square metre
Detailing is where quotes diverge. A 20mm square edge is standard; a 40mm mitred edge adds around 25 per cent; a waterfall end adds $1,100 to $2,800; an undermount sink cut-out with a drainer groove adds $350 to $850.
Appliances — 10 to 25 per cent
A sensible mid-range package — 600mm oven, induction cooktop, integrated dishwasher, ducted rangehood — costs $4,000 to $7,500. Premium European with a pyrolytic oven and 900mm induction runs $11,000 to $19,000. Integrated refrigeration and a steam oven push past $35,000.
The honest assessment: the performance gap between a good $2,000 oven and a $7,000 one is real but modest. The gap between a $400 rangehood and a $1,400 one is enormous, because extraction rate determines whether your cabinetry smells like last week’s cooking.
Trades — 15 to 25 per cent
- Demolition and disposal — $1,000 to $3,000
- Plumbing, existing locations — $1,300 to $2,500
- Plumbing with relocated sink and dishwasher — $2,500 to $6,000
- Electrical, new circuits and lighting — $2,200 to $5,500
- Gas work and certification — $700 to $1,800
- Plastering and patching — $1,000 to $3,000
- Painting — $1,000 to $2,800
- Flooring, if replaced — $70 to $200 per square metre installed
- Splashback tiling or glass — $800 to $3,200
- Floor levelling — $40 to $90 per square metre, and frequently needed in Melbourne
The Melbourne Variables
Sloping and springy floors
This is the defining Melbourne kitchen problem. In a stumped timber-framed home, the kitchen floor is frequently out of level by 20 to 60mm across the room, and sometimes considerably more. The consequences:
- Cabinetry must be packed and levelled, and the toe-kick scribed to follow the floor
- A benchtop run of four metres on a sloping floor will visibly diverge from the wall line above it unless the design accounts for it
- Appliance openings must be square even where the surrounding structure is not
- Large-format floor tiles will lip and crack on a floor that moves — self-levelling compound or floor re-sheeting may be required first
The practical answer: address the structure before the kitchen. If the house needs restumping, do it first. Installing $40,000 of joinery on a house that will be lifted and re-levelled in three years is money spent twice. See our Melbourne renovation cost guide for restumping costs.
Whether the plumbing moves
The biggest single cost lever. Keeping the sink and dishwasher near their existing waste keeps plumbing in the $1,300 to $2,500 band. In a timber-floored Melbourne home with a subfloor to work in, relocating them might cost $1,500 — considerably cheaper than the equivalent move in a slab home, where core drilling and new falls push it to $4,000 or more.
This is one area where Melbourne’s older housing stock is actually an advantage. A generous subfloor makes services genuinely flexible.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is Bathroom Renovation Costs in Melbourne: Real Prices, Real Timelines.
Whether a wall comes out
Opening a Melbourne kitchen into a living area is the most requested change in the city. If the wall is non-structural, removal and making good costs $1,800 to $4,000. If it is load-bearing, you need an engineer’s design, a steel or LVL beam, temporary propping, and — critically in a stumped house — new footings or stumps under the point loads. Budget $7,000 to $14,000, and note that this requires a building permit.
Heritage overlays
Internal kitchen work is rarely caught by a heritage overlay, since overlays generally regulate external appearance and demolition. But if your kitchen renovation involves a new external window, an altered opening, or demolishing a rear section, a planning permit may be required. Check the overlay before assuming internal work is unconstrained.
A related guide to consider while planning this work is How Much Does an Open-Plan Kitchen Renovation Cost?.
Layouts That Work in Melbourne Homes
The single-fronted terrace or cottage
Inner Melbourne single-fronted homes are typically 3.6 to 4.5 metres wide, which rules out an island in the main body. The workable answers are a single-run kitchen along one wall with tall storage, or a galley with 1,000mm between runs. Where a rear addition exists, the kitchen usually sits at the junction of old and new, which puts services near existing stacks.
The californian bungalow
Melbourne’s interwar bungalows have generously proportioned but compartmentalised rear sections. The standard successful move is removing the wall between the original kitchen and an adjacent room to create a single open space, with the kitchen against the internal wall and the dining area toward the northern light.
The post-war brick veneer
Middle-ring Melbourne homes typically have a kitchen at the rear with a separate dining room. The highest-value change is opening the two into one space with an L-shaped kitchen and a parallel island. Keep the island at 900 to 1,000mm from the bench run.
Apartments
Melbourne apartments impose slab constraints on waste relocation, and the owners corporation controls what you can touch. See our guide to apartment renovation and owners corporation approvals in Melbourne.
Storage and Layout Decisions People Regret
The most common complaint about a finished kitchen is not the benchtop. It is that there is nowhere to put things.
- Drawers rather than cupboards in base cabinetry — nothing is lost at the back
- Full-height cabinetry to the ceiling rather than a dust-collecting gap above
- An appliance garage for the kettle, toaster and coffee machine, keeping benchtops clear
- Deep pot drawers beside the cooktop with a spice and oil pull-out within reach
- A butler’s pantry where space allows, particularly where the kitchen is visible from a living area
- Purpose-sized bin storage matched to your council’s bin system
Before finalising, empty the current kitchen onto the dining table and count what is actually stored. Most households find they need more drawer volume and fewer overhead cupboards than a standard layout provides.
Lighting and Ventilation
Melbourne’s shorter winter days make kitchen lighting more consequential here than in northern capitals. A properly lit kitchen has three layers: task lighting under the overheads illuminating the benchtop directly; ambient lighting positioned over circulation space rather than over the bench, so you are not standing between the light and your work; and feature lighting over an island at 750 to 900mm above the benchtop.
Specify a consistent 2,700K to 3,000K colour temperature and put each layer on its own dimmable switch. This costs almost nothing at rough-in and cannot be added later without opening the ceiling.
On ventilation, duct externally wherever the building allows. Duct diameter and run length matter more than fan power — a strong hood on a long convoluted duct performs poorly. Size the extraction rate to the room volume, and check the noise rating; an inline or externally mounted motor is substantially quieter in an open-plan space.
Timelines
A Melbourne kitchen with no structural work takes four to seven weeks on site, but the calendar timeline is longer:
- Design and quoting — 2 to 4 weeks
- Building permit where required — 2 to 4 weeks
- Demolition and services rough-in — 1 week
- Joinery manufacture — 4 to 6 weeks after site measure
- Installation, stone template and fit — 2 to 3 weeks, with a 7 to 10 day gap mid-install for stone
- Splashback, painting and fit-off — 1 week
Three to four months from first call to finished kitchen is normal in Melbourne.
Comparing Quotes Fairly
Confirm every quote states:
- Linear metres of cabinetry, and the carcass material and thickness
- The specific benchtop product, thickness and edge detail
- Whether appliances are supplied or a provisional sum has been allowed
- Which trades are included and which you must arrange
- Whether demolition, disposal and making good are in scope
- Whether painting, flooring and any floor levelling are included
- The handle allowance, and whether it is realistic
- Whether a building permit is required and who obtains it
- What happens if the floor proves to need levelling or the wall proves load-bearing
That last point separates professional Melbourne builders from the rest. In this city’s housing stock, something under the floor is usually different from what was assumed, and a good quote says in advance what happens then.
Saving Money Without Losing Quality
- Keep the services where they are. Worth $2,000 to $4,000.
- Mix cabinetry finishes. Two-pack on doors people touch, melamine inside and in the pantry. Saves 10 to 15 per cent of joinery cost.
- Design to a single stone slab. Crossing into a second slab can add $2,000 for material you barely use.
- Standard-size appliances. Non-standard sizes force custom cabinet dimensions across the whole kitchen.
- Book off-peak. Melbourne cabinetmakers are busiest August to November; January and February bring better lead times and sharper pricing.
The kitchens people remain happy with a decade on are rarely the most expensive. They are the ones where the layout suited how the household cooks, the storage was planned around real possessions, and the structure underneath was sorted out first.
Working Around a Kitchen That Is Not Square
Melbourne period homes present a specific joinery challenge that newer housing does not, and how a cabinetmaker handles it separates a good result from a compromised one.
In a settled Victorian or Edwardian home, walls are commonly out of plumb by 10 to 30mm over their height, corners are not at 90 degrees, and the floor falls across the room. A run of cabinetry built square and installed into that space will show the discrepancy as a tapering gap.
How good Melbourne cabinetmakers handle it:
- Scribe fillers at the ends of runs and against walls, cut to follow the actual wall line rather than a straight edge
- Scribed toe-kicks following the floor rather than packed to a level line, so no wedge of daylight appears
- Site measure after demolition, not before — measuring over old tiles or lining produces cabinetry that does not fit
- Benchtop templating after installation, so the stone follows the wall rather than the theoretical plan
- A shadow line or reveal detail where cabinetry meets a wall, which absorbs discrepancy visually far better than a butt joint
- Levelling the floor first where the fall exceeds what scribing can absorb
This is the practical reason custom cabinetry outperforms flat-pack in Melbourne’s older stock. Flat-pack assumes square, and the filler strips and packing required to install it into an out-of-square room frequently undermine the saving.
Heating and the Kitchen
An under-considered Melbourne point. The kitchen in an older home is frequently in a rear lean-to — the coldest, least insulated part of the house, with a concrete or poorly insulated floor and an external wall on two or three sides.
While the kitchen is stripped back, some cheap measures make a real difference:
- Insulate the external walls while the linings are off — a few hundred dollars and permanently effective
- Insulate the ceiling above the kitchen if the roof space is accessible
- Insulate under the floor if there is a subfloor, or use an insulated screed if not
- Seal the gaps around the old back door, which in a Melbourne lean-to is usually the worst air leak in the house
- Plan a heating point — a split system head or a hydronic panel — because an open-plan kitchen and living space needs it
These add perhaps $3,000 to $6,000 to a kitchen project and are essentially impossible to retrofit once the joinery is in. In Melbourne’s climate they change how the room is used for eight months of the year.